The ferry was quick. It was a chilly day so we stayed inside & plotted over dinner in Sorrento. The thing about Italy is that no sooner are you finished one meal, that you begin thinking about the next. Southern Italy was having much cooler weather than usual. They were like us in Baltimore, all coming down with the flu or catching a cold. We passed snow-topped mountains (usually the snow occurs November through January. We were lucky to see this. We were driving at altitudes of 4,000 feet. Nikki was diligent with nose spray, because this is nose-bleed territory for her. We had lunch in Cosenza. They seemed to think we hadn't eaten in days. I have never experienced in Italy such large portions. It was good Southern peasant style cuisine, but way too much.
We have had such luck with sunsets. We arrived into Sorrento overlooking the sea while the sun was setting. There were orange & lemon trees. Houses stacked on the mountain side. We stayed at Hotel Michelangelo. This was nice here and remember, the drinks are very affordable at their bar! Since we came in the evening, it was beautiful to see how they lit up the hotel at night.
We returned to another place that we ate on a previous trip. This time the meal was not so good. The pizza was overcooked and tough. Except for the busboy the staff had an attitude. Who knows what caused this, but we didn't let it affect us. The wine was good as was the calmaretti appetizer. Hey, it can't be all sun and roses all of the time!
We got up the next day and it was pouring, raining cats, dogs, cows and everything else under the sun! The rest of the crowd was going to Capri. Unfortunately they experienced hail while they were there. Most of Capri was shut down, they will need to return to see it as it should be. Charlie, Colleen and the three of us went to visit with Charlie's cousins, Ninnilo and Bettina. They live in Campania. We climbed a 3 story walkup (and worked up an appetite doing so) and had a reunion of sorts. Nikki was able to converse in Italian the last time she saw them and this time, Bettina who speaks very little English, spoke better English than Nikki spoke Italian! This has now inspired her to return to her studies. After they showed us around their condo which was filled with Ninnilo's art and we nibbled on appetizers and drank some wine, we walked over to an osteria (didn't get the name). We had an amazing meal. This was very local.
Ninnilo's brother, Egidio, and his wife, Nina, came also. [Nikki says: The buffalo mozzarella was unlike any we've ever had. When you sliced it in half and pressed on the ball, milk came out. It had the perfect amount of salt added. Once I showed Mom the milk coming out, that other ball was mine! She is not a dairy person.] After the appetizers came out, we had 4 types of home made pasta dishes come out. We thought that was it, so we had seconds. Then lamb & 3 different fish dishes came out! Uh oh.... How could we not eat it and insult the chef..... I think our stomachs have expanded 4 inches by now. The contorni was chilled broccoli rabe flavored with lemon. It was not bitter, it was perfection. After the meal, which came to 15 euros apiece, we strolled back to their condo. This time we needed to walk the steps several times over! Bettina had made a pear/ricotta torte. Nikki sneaked back in the kitchen for seconds! Ninnilo gave her a lithograph of one of his paintings. We will treasure his gift. It will remind us of what a great day we had in spite of such lousy weather.
Our driver came to return five sleepy, overfed Americans back to Hotel Michelangelo. When we neared the city-----Sorrento has one main street to get in and one main street to get out----we hit a traffic snag and so the driver had to drop us off where our group was meeting up for... dinner. Oh, no! Dinner??? But we ate so much. If we had been home, we probably could have gone a day without eating anything but light portions. But we are in Sorrento for our last night have a very special meal prepared for us at this grandiose restaurant that overlooks the sea. In all honestly it was dark, so we can only imagine how beautiful there view was. The waiter looked at us very strangely when he came back to our table to find five of the six appetizer plates barely eaten. Charlie had to explain that we were not dissatisfied but still full from lunch. He asked him if they could give the five of us smaller portions. They still weren't small enough, but we still tried to eat as much us possible. If we keep this up, we are going to need to apply to The Biggest Loser.
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